


minor miracles.

by outpastthemoat



Series: song of songs [12]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean Praying, Fluff, M/M, Miracles, Schmoop, sentimental drivel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2014-06-13
Packaged: 2018-02-04 13:08:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1780255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outpastthemoat/pseuds/outpastthemoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean knows better than to count on miracles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	minor miracles.

There are only a few things Dean knows for sure. Fundamental truths, laws of physics, like how it’s gravity that keeps his feet on the earth and how fate can always be rewritten.

He knows for a fact that some nights his brother will laugh in his sleep.  He knows that the sky is blue and that coin-operated washing machines will always eat his change and most toll roads can be avoided.

If there is any one truth he holds close to his heart, it is that miracles don’t just happen.  He knows that blessings never come without a cost. He knows that bad things happen to good people, that good things happen to bad people, that no one deserves anything, least of all the life they’ve been given.  He knows that he has been one of the bad things, knows that he has been the one to strip away someone else’s faith.  He knows that nothing good comes without a price, he knows that God doesn’t hand out miracles expecting nothing in return.  He knows that what he has in this life is not free.  He knows that he will fight tooth and nail to keep whatever is good that he’s been given.  He knows that when he’s up against that kind of fight, then he’s bound to lose.

He knows that he isn’t the kind of person that good things happen to.  Dean thinks he knows better than to believe in miracles.

\--

He starts noticing the spaces in his life. The cracks and crossroads in his soul, a blinding white light pouring through to illuminate all the voids in his heart.  When he dreams, he dreams of standing outside a small white house.  He dreams of stepping inside and walking the floors, opening all the doors and looking inside.  His house is a little damaged. There are broken floorboards and scorch marks on the walls, peeling wallpaper and ivy growing through the cracks in the windows . He finds dust on the windowsills and cobwebs in the corners. But his house is still standing, alone on a hill, filled with empty rooms, and when he wakes, he finds that his arms are reaching for someone who isn’t there.

He thinks sometimes that it would take a miracle to fill all the empty spaces in his life, to fill this aching void in his chest. He thinks it would take a miracle to wake up and find someone to share the rumpled white hollows of his bed.  

In his dreams, he steps across the threshold of this house and touches the wood by the windows and when he turns around, there is someone by his side, reaching out to take his hand.

—

He is sitting at the kitchen table. His kitchen table.  His left elbow is brushing against Cas’s side and on his right, Sam is scraping the last of his dinner off his plate. 

For the first time in as far back as he can remember, Dean looks around and sees that his life is good.

He looks at these two people that he loves and he finds that he can hold the view without even having to move his head, he can just lean back and watch them eat, two dusty heads bent over their food.  They are tired. They are exhausted. There is a dark ring of dried blood staining the sleeve of Cas’s shirt.  Sam’s eyes are red, his hand with his fork in it is shaking.  The kitchen is silent because they are so, so tired, too tired to talk, too exhausted to do anything but eat, and Dean is so happy that he is afraid his heart is going to burst out of his chest. 

He is looking around the table at this, his family, and he thinks, I am the luckiest man in the world. I have been blessed. Blessed to have this, blessed to have the ones I love the most by my side, in my home.

 _I am blessed_ , he thinks in that shining, still moment, and afterwards he starts seeing blessings everywhere he looks: little blessings, like the sun shining on Cas’s dark head as he sits in his armchair under the eastern-facing window in the library, little blessings like the sound of Sam’s voice carrying down the hall, over the sound of rain on the roof. 

He counts each one, he writes down each blessing on scraps of paper, on the backs of gas receipts and napkins. He tears off strips of vellum and parchment from the old, old journals left scattered all around his home.  He buys packets of post-it notes, minuscule squares in all the colors of the rainbow; he writes down all his blessings and leaves the notes scattered everywhere, tiny fluttering notes stuck on the steering wheel of his car, on the mirror in his room, on the nightstand by his bed.  He catalogs each little wonder in the moment as they happen,  _Pie for dinner_ ,  _found a $20 bill,_ _made Cas laugh_. 

Blessings.  Every one.

From the moment his head lifts from the pillow, he’s counting his blessings: Cas lingering by the door, just outside his room, murmuring  _Goodnight Dean;_  Cas against his shoulder, sleeping in the passenger side of the car; Cas sitting cross-legged on Dean’s bedspread, nothing to say, just being companionable, leaning back against the headboard and flicking through the pages of his book -  _Thank you, oh, thank you for this._   Cas, talking to him in a low voice as he kneels on the floor by to Dean’s chair, Cas on the couch next to him, with his hand almost touching Dean’s knee.  Blessings, every one. 

He bows his head and opens his heart and pours out all the thankful gratitude in his heart to whoever might be listening. And even if there is no one is listening, he’ll say it anyway.  _Thank you_ , his heart beating out the rhythm like a prayer,  _thank you. Thank for giving me this, so that I can carry this moment forever_. He holds his blessings inside his heart and counts each one like beads on a rosary.  

—

Sometimes he looks at Cas and knows something true, something fundamental, a belief he holds deep inside him at his very core: He is in love.

He knows this for a fact, even though he has nothing to prove it with.  He has never put his arms around Cas’s shoulders, he has never put his lips to Cas’s hair, but he doesn’t have to just to know that if heaven or hell offered him anything, he would ask for this, that if he was ever able to walk through the door to his house and take Cas in his arms, he’d have to start believing in miracles, he’d have to change his mind, because having the chance to put his arms around Cas could only ever be a miracle.

There have been moments when he almost thinks he’s bee given a miracle.  When Cas opens door to his bedroom and slips inside, when he stretches out along one side of Dean’s bed, with his head on Dean’s pillow and one hand curling under his cheek, talking to Dean all night. About nothing. About everything. About how hard it is to find the right fit of shoe. About dying and coming back and trying so hard to live. About all the different flavors of Coke. Sometimes they talk all night, until Cas falls asleep there beside him, his head tilted back and his arm flung across Dean’s side of the bed.  

He looks at Cas sometimes and wonders what would happen if he were to say everything he’s always felt but never had the words to say:  _You’re it. You’re it for me, you are the one I have never be able to get over. It’s you. It’s been you for years, only you._

He looks across the bed at Cas sleeping and wonders, how do I get there from here? How do I find the courage to cross the room and take his hand? How does anyone go from maybe-something to everything, everything, holding hands across the kitchen table and falling asleep with your arms wrapped around someone else’s chest? Sometimes Dean looks at him, leaning back against the headboard, Dean’s pillow behind his head, and he can almost say it.  He’s almost ready to shake Cas awake just to say, _I have to tell you, I have to let you know that I-_

But instead he sits and watches Cas’s chest move up and down.  He thinks about how it’s a blessing to have this much, to share this with Cas. He lets Cas sleep.

—

He prays for Cas, he prays for Sam.  One more day, one more miracle; one more morning of waking up with Cas’s untidy head on the pillow next to his, one more night falling asleep with Cas pressed up against his back and his hands curled around his ribs. Sam, blood pumping through his veins and joy shining in his eyes.  He sees miracles unfolding every day, every morning when the sun comes in strong and golden through the diamond-pane windows and Cas is there. Every mile he spends barreling down the highway and Cas is by his side. Every night he turns out the lights and settles in his bed and Cas slips inside, warm and rough and  _here, here, here_ , and he prays. He kneels on the floor beside his bed and prays until he can almost feel his heart bleed. 

Cas finds him like that, face down on the bedspread, lips moving against the skin of his palms.

“What are you doing?” he asks.  Then, “You’re praying,”: he says.  He says it with reverence, with wonder, like it’s something new, some profound secret that has been revealed. Dean feels heady, hearing that reverence in his voice.

“Yeah,” he says, simply.  “I was.”

“To me?” Cas asks.

“Nah,” Dean says, “not you. Not this time.”

He can’t find it in his heart to believe that all these blessings will come without cost, with no strings attached.  His fearful heart tells him that he’ll pay for every second of happiness he lets himself take, his heart whispers that it’s only a matter of time before all these blessings are stripped away. He has sins still etched on his heart, and miracles just don’t happen for him.

But Dean prays for all that he has and more.  He prays for a thousand more days, just like the ones that came before, a hundred thousand nights of falling asleep to the sound of Sam’s footsteps in the hall, of Cas’s warm breath whispering against his skin.  He pleads. He bows his head and begs.

 —

He dreams, sometimes, of watching Cas die.  He dreams of standing from a great distance and watching Cas fall to the ground. In his dreams he just stands there, not breathing, just standing still and holding his heart, because his chest hurts too much to breathe.  

He wakes up and reaches out until his hands are brushing Cas’s chest, until he can feel the steady beat of Cas’s heart for himself.  He’s praying for a miracle. He doesn’t even know who he’s talking to, Give me this one miracle and I’ll never ask you for anything else ever again, just keep him safe. Please don’t let him die.  He lies there and holds Cas and imagines him dying and he tries to deal.  I’ll do anything. I’ll make him coffee every day for the rest of his life, no complaining. I won’t ask him to love me.  Give me this miracle.  

He prays, I want to have my arms around him the moment he walks through that door every night.  I want to put my head on his chest and hear his stupid heartbeat. Just to know he’s okay.

Please, he prays.  Please. Just keep them safe, the ones I love.

—

One day he wakes up and Cas is still there and he realizes, for the first time, that he can believe in miracles.

He looks at Cas and Cas looks back, eyes soft with sleep, and Dean wants to tell him, You are a blessing.  You are a miracle.  How can anything as wonderful as you be real?  He wants to say, There will never come a time when we can make a clean break out of it, there will never be a moment when I could say a real goodbye, because I will wake up every morning for the rest of my life and want you here beside me.

One last miracle, he prays, just one more. Just this. Just let him know how I feel.  He puts his hand on Cas’s face, strokes the soft scruff there.  Brings his head down until their foreheads touch.  Closes his eyes and breathes in.

He opens his eyes and prepares to fall. 

He can’t keep his promise.  He can’t stop praying, can’t stop asking for everything he wants and isn’t sure he deserves, praying for everything he already has and for more, for everything, for the world.  He’s praying, _Oh, let him love me as much as I love him, l_ _et me be loved, let me be loved_  - and it must be a miracle, it must be the answer to one of those unspoken prayers, because Cas’s hands are slipping around his waist, Cas is kissing him back and that broken, frightened heart of Dean’s is soaring because he knows in this moment-

he is.

 

> _I want to love with this crooked heart  
>  all beat to hell, skipped over, charged with sparks  
>  four wayward chambers _ _pumped full of danger -_
> 
> _Well, I’ll make my case for a minor miracle._


End file.
